Oscraps

how do you organize/print photos or albums?

Deb7456

Deb7456

Well-Known Member
I was just wondering how different people organize your photos for your families. Do you print your LOs? If so, do you try to make them into albums in order by date? Do you print 4x6s of most of your photos and only scrap the special ones? What size do you print your LOs, if you print?

I've been picking & choosing photos to scrap at random, but my hubby wants a printed album ready to show at Christmas time. I figured I should get organized & make a list.

So... I decided to do an album of Jan-Jun of 2009... I made a list... and I figured it will take 110 pages for that six-month period! :eek:
AND... that was a time period when my computer crashed & I lost at least a month (here & there) of photos... so that was a LIGHT six months, photo-wise. :shock:

I'm seriously thinking of mixing my 12x12 albums with page protectors that include 4x6 slots and some 5x8 slots. I can do mini-LOs with the 5x8 slots and use the 4x6s for regular photo lab printouts (for extra shots that I like but don't want to add to my LOs).

I can't believe I ever thought I'd be able to do ALL my photos in 12x12 layouts. Maybe other people are able to do it, though?? :confused:

Please tell me I'm not the only one WAAYYY behind! :p
 
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I just do what I do. I don't force myself to do anything. I have a folder of pics I want to do that I organized in folders titled for what they are and how i want to scrap them so that i can scrap them when i find a kit i want to scrap them with. I do everything on 12x12 pages. i am behind and ahead at the same time if that makes any sense. when i print my books out i usually print them out a couple of different ways. i section them off by child then i put pics of the kids together then pics that have nothing to do with them last. but i have also printed a few other books. i made a book that i made of a dr seuss story that i remade with lo's of my daughter, then one of just pics from one photo shoot. so, there is no right or wrong way to do it. if you are doing pics of kids you could do a book for each kid. winkflash is a good site for books with a lot of pages.
 
I think it sounds like much too much of a task to try and complete by Christmas time - and if you rush it you might not get it looking exactly how you'd want. You're a brave woman. How about creating a mini album (or 3) that can be printed and put in a traditional scrapbook, or even printed and bound by one of those sites like Shutterfly. Doesn't have to be 12x12 - could be as small as 5x7. And perhaps take a particular time period - like last Christmas, or each person's birthday in the last year, or your summer vacation, or a trip to stay with granny, etc. I think trying to get the whole year done will blow your mind.

Back to your original question - I do print all my LOs. From my paper scrapping days I still have open & needing filling my loose system whereby I have:

one album for birthday & Christmas (chronological - my most hated way of scrapping - and I'm still a year behind)

one album for "story" type LOs (we went to the x museum, with family x and we did this....)

one album for what I call "Life's Moments" (more likely to be LOs with a cracking photo & no particular story, or a quirky story eg: kids writing to Santa)

and then I have about 40 mini albums, mostly paper scrapping, but some are digi albums I've printed out a smaller size - just yesterday I was sticking last year's Christmas to 6x6 chipboard with mod podge and will bind probably with my Bind-it-all - will look great.

I don't have people specific albums. I don't scrap chronologically. I scrap twice as many LOs about my youngest son as my oldest son! I barely scrap my DH at all!! I scrap when the story or photo inspires me.

I do, however, often have albums printed by Shutterfly etc. Generally, they are topic specific - like I bought Paislee Press's Lark album and got that printed, it looks fabulous. I have once sent all my 8.5x11 LOs to be printed, only because this is a paper size that can't be bought where I live so this was the only way to print them. They look get, but it's a mish mash album - although this is fine.

Printing sites to check out: Shutterfly, Blurb, Artscow are ones I know about, but if you check the threads here in the Chatter section and also the Help section there have been several queries about printing in the recent past.

Really good luck with your task and do let us know what you decide to do.
 
Oh Lordy. I think everyone here is behind on scrapping...I think that's mandatory for scrappers. hee hee

I posted some links to some similar threads that are in our Help section in the Introduce Yourself post for you. They might help too.

If you really would like to put together an album for Christmas...I HIGHLY recommend getting some of the quick page albums from the store. TaylorMade Designs and Vicki Stegall just came out with a new set; Paislee Press has several different sets as does TaylorMade, and several others. Several of them are Shutterfly ready too. You can just drop in the pics you want and add some journaling and even extra embellishments and have them done fast. That's how I did my dad and his wife's wedding album last year.

I have started printing most of my stuff as 8 x 8. I can print 8 x 8 at home on my photo printer and it looks great. But it's also inexpensive to get them printed at Costco. I mostly gave up on 12 x 12. =)

I have my photos in chronological order (in iPhoto on my Mac, in folders on my PC) and on my Mac, iPhoto does a great job of tagging and separating into events. (I don't use iPhoto for my scrapping supplies though...just my photos.) I do have a tendency to pick random photos and scrap them. Which means I have a lot of those "Life Moments" layouts that Selena talked about. So I really like her idea of having one album for Birthday/Christmas/Major holidays and one album of "Life Moments" kind of. But I do wish I was more chronological. That way I could pull out say the album from when he was 2. I don't know....maybe I'll get that organized better.....some day. =)
 
For the most part I scrap my photos randomly and I print all of my layouts as 8.5x11 pages and keep them inside page protectors in 3-ring binders. Some day, when I finally catch up (lol!) I can then move them around into chronological order, but for now they go in as they're finished and printed.

The exception is that I do a 12x12 book for each child. One book per year of their life. The first page is always of their birthday and then each double page set contains special photos and journaling for each month followed by a month-by-month series of photos showing their growth at the end.
 
Hey Deb! Great questioins. I scrap mostly the year I am in. I figure when my kids are all grown up I can go back to older photos. However sometimes I get earlier shots.

I print all my pages as 6x4 photos and put them in a normal album - saves money and space.

Hope that helps! Good luck with your decision.
 
Glad I'm not the only one... :D Thanks for all the inspiration! Sara - I will go check out your post.

I've decided to scrap just one month (May 2009) by Christmas. That will be about 20 pages to do, which will make a nice little album.

I think I want to scrap in order by date, even though it doesn't seem as creative! I'm printing at home, but I need to figure out something different so I can finish my albums more quickly. Maybe if I mix my 12x12s with smaller layouts and regular 4x6s, it will go a little faster!

I've been looking at We R Memory Keepers albums & page protectors. They have page protectors that fit in 12x12 albums, but with divided slots for 4x6, 8x6, and 12x6. That would give me the flexibility to do smaller LOs (still with journaling) for several pictures. It just doesn't seem practical to try to make 12x12s of EVERY photo shoot, and yet I want all those memories journaled in the albums for my kids.

If I decide to go with We R Memory Keepers, I might be posting some smaller-size LOs in the gallery before long! I'm really excited about the idea. It's a relief to think about doing several simple, smaller pictures with only journaling around them.
 
I've been using the We R Memory Keepers albums (a la Ali Edwards) for a few months now. I am finding it very liberating and I actually feel somewhat caught up.
 
Awesome! Thanks for the encouragement. I placed an order for enough stuff to do a year's worth, so I was hoping I'd be happy with it! I have one month of layouts/page protectors all planned. I'm super excited even to make that much progress! :)
 
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